Sociology professor in Dayton University's International Studies program

Emphasizes Cloward and Piven's writings on voting

Theo Majka is a sociology professor in Dayton University’s International Studies program.

Majka teaches the courses “Racial and Ethnic Minorities,” “Community,” “Immigration and Immigrants,” and “Political Sociology.” In the latter course, Majka relies heavily on the studies of Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, and purports to examine “Marxist class theories.” Cloward and Piven were two Columbia University sociologists who, in the mid 1960s, proposed a plan to bankrupt the welfare system by overloading it with more applicants than the system could handle, which its enactors hoped would result in economic collapse, and eventually transform the U.S. into a socialist system. Organizations such as the National Welfare Rights Organization adopted this strategy, resulting in the welfare crisis that bankrupted New York City in 1975.

In his Political Sociology course, Majka particularly emphasizes Cloward and Piven’s writings on voting. He assigns, as a required text, Why Americans Still Don’t Vote, and Why Politicians Want It That Way. In the early 1980s, practitioners of the Cloward-Piven strategy formed the “voting rights movement.” The movement was lead by such groups as ACORN, Project Vote, and Human SERVE, the latter of which was founded by Cloward and Piven. These organizations lobbied for the Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton signed in 1993, and which is today responsible for inundating the system with invalid registrations and opening the door to the extraordinary levels of voter fraud in recent elections. In this course, Majka has imparted the following to his students:

"One thing I would like you to come away with is a realization that political issues have an enormous impact on our own lives and futures, even though their influence may often be indirect and complex. Also, if you and I are not knowledgeable about political issues and do not participate in political decisions in informed ways, then others, usually powerful private interests, will successfully manipulate our consciousness and dominate the public arena, often in ways that are not neither in our personal nor in our national interest."